Category Archives: Labor

The CEO of Verizon makes almost $20 million a year in compensation. He leads one of the most profitable companies in the country.

Yet Verizon wants to take away employees’ health benefits. Verizon wants to outsource decent-paying jobs. Verizon wants to avoid paying federal income tax. And right now, Verizon is refusing to sit down and negotiate a fair contract with its employees.

In other words, Verizon is just another major American corporation trying to destroy the lives of working Americans. But this time, Verizon’s employees are fighting back.

Thousands of very brave employees of Verizon and Verizon Wireless are on strike until they can get a fair contract. They made a very difficult decision that puts their families at risk — but it’s a choice they made to stand up for justice against corporate greed.

I’m asking you today to stand up and tell the CEO of Verizon that you think Verizon employees deserve a fair contract that protects health benefits, guarantees fair pay, and stops outsourcing. Click here to add your name in support of Verizon employees.

Twice last week in New York City I stood with Verizon workers in the streets. I did so because they’re doing something very brave: they’re standing up not just for themselves, but for the millions of Americans who don’t have a union. Continue reading →

Approximately 39,000 Verizon landline and cable workers on the East Coast walked off the job Wednesday morning after working without a contract since August.

Approximately 39,000 Verizon landline and cable workers on the East Coast walked off the job Wednesday morning after working without a contract since August. An agreement was not reached with the Verizon (NYSE:VZ), largest U.S. wireless communications service provider. It is the biggest U.S work stoppage since 2011, when a Verizon strike lasted two weeks.

Bernie Sanders joined the picket line with workers on Wednesday morning in Brooklyn. The Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate said that Verizon was one of the richest and most powerful corporations in this country, “but they refuse to sit down and negotiate a fair contract.” Sanders told the energized group of picketers:

“They want to take away the health benefits that you have earned. They want to outsource decent paying jobs. They want to give their CEO $20 million a year in compensation. They want to avoid paying federal income taxes. In other words, this is just another major American corporation trying to destroy the lives of working Americans. Today you are standing up not just for justice for Verizon workers, you’re standing up for millions of Americans who don’t have a union….”

With the start of the 2016 budget season underway, raising the minimum wage has taken center stage. Governor Wolf touched raising the minimum wage during his blistering budget address to the General Assembly. He then signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for all state workers to $10.15 an hour, and then went on a statewide tour advocating for minimum wage increases. These gestures raised wages for roughly 450 state employees and sparked dialogue on an issue it that has not received a lot of legislative action.

A number of bills calling for increasing the wage were introduced in the House and Senate at the beginning of the 2015-2016 legislative session, but the issue has seen little action since the Senate Labor and Industry Committee hearing held last May. After Governor Wolf announced the wage increases for all state workers, Steven Miskin, top spokesman for House Republican leadership, told the Post Gazette that the “minimum wage is and was intended as a ‘starting’ wage or ‘training’ wage.” and that “it is and was never meant to serve as a ‘living’ wage.”

One of the main organizations opposing a minimum wage increase is the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association, a trade organization that lobbies for the hospitality and tourism industry. The PRLA held their 28th annual lobby day on the hill, and hundreds of lobbyists and members from the organization descended onto the capitol….

It has happened-According to a report from the Pew Research Center, the American middle class, once the backbone of the economy, is now in the minority. Persons identifying as “middle class” are finding it more difficult to make ends meet; the numbers of “middle class” has shrunk from 53 percent to 44 percent. According to the Pew survey, the number of people who identify as “lower middle” or “lower’ class has risen to 40 percent, as opposed to 25 percent in February 2008.

Here is the “free market” working its magic – the idea that if we just let the capitalists do their thing, without the government intervening – except to grant tax breaks and repress dissidents, like workers organizing – we would all prosper, and not just stockbrokers and hedge-fund managers. We are returning to the period just after the Civil War, the “Gilded Age,” when capitalists dominated the government and all public discussion, when workers – including the women and children – worked from before sunrise to after sunset, in mines loaded with poisonous gasses and ready to collapse, working for close to nothing and having to pay for the equipment to use for the bosses’ prosperity, watched over by supervisors who had no respect for workers and could shoot them if they got out of line – these are the days we’re returning to. Continue reading →

Equality Fraternity Reality

Strong children

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken ones" —Frederick Douglass

Ignorance and Power

“Ignorance allied with power is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” -- James Baldwin

Money is power….

"Money is power. In Congress, in state legislatures, in city councils, in the courts, in the political conventions, in the press, in the pulpit, in the circles of the educated and the talented, its influence is growing greater and greater. Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many.”
— Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States 1877-1881

Let the people think….

Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed.”
-- William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693

Taxes & budgets

Women's rights

Dehumanization

"The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human" - Aldous Huxley

Money is power

Money is power. In Congress, in state legislatures, in city councils, in the courts, in the political conventions, in the press, in the pulpit, in the circles of the educated and the talented, its influence is growing greater and greater. Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many.”
-- Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States (1877-1881)

Riots

“Riots are the language of the unheard” -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cost of War

Currently nearing $1.6 trillion, for Iraq and Afghanistan alone; watch it grow at Cost of War

The cause of war

"The cause of war is the preparation of war." -- W.E.B. DuBois

Presidential limits

"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

--Barack Obama, 2007

Totalitarianism

“To be corrupted by totalitarianism, one does not have to live in a totalitarian country.”

-- George Orwell

Reimagining capitalism

"Politicians argue over big government so they can avoid talking about big capitalism" -- William Greider in The Nation

The problem with democracy

Progressive calendar

Click hereto view calendar of progressive events in and near Chester County.Agenda view (click in upper right of calendar) may be best.

Links to other sites:

Let the people think …

"Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed."
--William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693

On humor

"When oppressed peoples have no other remedy they resort to humor" --E. O. Wilson

Koch Brothers index

For a list of all posts relevant to the Koch Brothers on this site, click here.

Truth and consequences

"If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out." -- Oscar Wilde

Power

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

-- Frederick Douglass, 1817-95

Schools, parents, democracy

“What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.” -- John Dewey

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Liberty v. power

“The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.”
-- William Hazlitt, 1778-1830

On war

"No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic." - A. J. P. Taylor

Bill Moyers says

"The opposite of poverty is not wealth; it is justice."

Ain’t they got no shame

In the name of peace
They waged the wars
Ain't they got no shame

-- Nikki Giovanni

Need & Greed

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not for every man's greed" -- Gandhi

Normalcy?

"If this is normalcy, I'd hate to see what real trouble is" - the late Daniel Shore on Iraq, Morning Edition, NPR, 3/29/08

Freedom and tyranny

"...So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom,
those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men." --Voltaire, 1764

Thoughts on War

"Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac." -- George Orwell

"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." -- Leon Trotsky

Total Cost of War

The cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars to Pennsylvanians alone is over $57,000,000,000 and to the entire US is over $1.3 trillion; now wouldn't that be helpful in Harrisburg and DC these days? Track our dollars' alarming and destructive disappearance at CostofWar.com

The American oligarchy

“The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.” — Michael Lind, To Have and to Have Not